► McLaren 675LT first drive
► It’s the evolution of 650S
► Triumphs the Aventador SV
Slower burning than one of those unfeasibly slothful fuses on a TV-movie stick of dynamite, McLaren’s Super Series range has finally exploded into true greatness with the introduction of the 675LT. Somehow managing to blend the raw dynamism of a full-on track machine with most of the civility of the 650S, it packs the best power-to-weight ratio in its class and a kick like a railway gun when the turbos get going. If big brother P1 had a collar, he’d be nervously tugging it away from his neck right now.
The LT stands for Longtail, and the car is McLaren’s answer to the likes of the Lamborghini Superleggera and Porsche GT3 sub-brands. The name’s derived from the mighty late ’90s F1 Longtail racers, but don’t take it too literally. Yes, the rear bodywork aft of the B-pillars is all new – and all carbon – and the rear airbrake is half as big again, but the name is less about extra inches and more about the original Longtail’s tweaked drivetrain, chassis and aerodynamics, implemented to keep the F1 competitive in the years following the ’95 Le Mans win.
650S versus 675LT: what’s different?
The 650S is already a bit of a weapon. McLaren could have just tweaked the 3.8-litre V8’s ECU and exhaust to unleash a few more ponies, nuked a few kilos of soundproofing and made an easy killing. Instead, one third of the components that make up the 650S were changed to create the 675. Half of the engine parts are new. No wonder it costs £259,500 (£290k for our test car), £61.5k more than the base 650.
You’d pay a good chunk of that just for visual improvements, never mind that the new front splitter, side skirts the rear end’s diffuser and larger airbrake contribute to a 40% improvement in downforce. Predictably, every pretty new part has a purpose: the swollen rear arches cover side-mounted radiators twisted outwards to improve cooling. The wheels are McLaren’s lightest yet, even lighter than P1’s. The rear window is polycarbonate, slotted along each side to let heat from the engine bay escape.
Enough with the drooling. Let’s drop into the carbon-backed bucket. The standard slim one fitted me perfectly, but there’s a wider alternative for the stouter of frame, or you can always wimp out and get the standard comfort seats if your girth is the sort that necessitates buying adjacent seats on every plane ride. In that case, both seat choice and driver would be a shame when McLaren’s engineers turned the car inside out trying to save a gram at every turn to shred 100kg from a car that weighed a scant 1428kg to begin with.
That included the engine, whose lightweight internals and faster turbochargers give it a sharper edge than the modest 25bhp (for 675PS, a devilish 666bhp) power increase might suggest. But factor in the 100kg weight reduction and you’re looking at a mammoth 579bhp per tonne – more than a Porsche 918 Spyder can boast.
McLaren 675LT: the drive
Call for all of it at lower revs and there’s a momentary pause, as if the car is asking ‘are you sure?’ before all hell breaks loose. It could seem crude coming off the back of Ferrari’s impressively near zero-lag atmo-aping 488 GTB, if it wasn’t such brilliant fun to feel this morning’s breakfast catapulting itself worryingly in the wrong direction along your digestive tract when you send the full 516lb ft to the rear tyres. The aero mods actually make the 675 2mph slower than the 207mph 650S at the very top end, but its 2.9sec 0-62mph and 7.9sec 0-124mph numbers are 0.1sec and 0.5sec quicker.
But you’ll likely feel the new quicker-ratio steering kick before you feel the engine do the same. Even allowing for the LT’s stickier Pirelli Trofeo tyres, the minute you roll away from standstill you notice the steering feels wildy different to the 650’s. Meatier, more accurate. More deflection from road irregularities too, but hugely feelsome, and connecting you to a front end that no one seems to have taught how to understeer. You can downgrade the tyres to less tacky Pirellis if you want more wet weather security, but you’d be robbing the LT of one of its best tools, like asking Jimmy Page to play Stairway… with a mandolin.
Out on the road the LT lacks the sublime small bump absorption of the 650S but counters with better body control from suspension stiffened 27% at the front end and 60% at the rear. Apparently a faction within McLaren was surprised how supple the car felt at the handling targets they’d set and wondered if they should make it stiffer. Sense prevailed, fortunately. As it stands, the LT feels epic on A-roads, and still useable in town. But it’s most at home on the track.
That much we expected. The sheer speed, stability, the colossal braking power, is all the stuff McLaren has offered from the start. But this time there’s an open invitation to be a bit of a hooligan too. The new ESP mode (now decoupled from three-position Handling mode) encourages sideways silliness; the burnout mode begs you to lay elevens. This car is about McLaren waking up to the fact that supercars are emotional purchases. Lap times matter, but showing off is a big part of the draw.
With an eye on maintaining exclusivity, McLaren is limiting production to 500 units, all coupes, and all sold. But this isn’t the last of the Longtail, execs hinting that the brand will be rolled out to the new 570S junior supercar family. We haven’t even driven that yet, but this first Longtail has us dribbling like infants at the prospect of a 590LT.
McLaren 675LT: the specs
Price: £259,500
Engine: 3799cc 32v V8, 666bhp@7100rpm, 516lb ft@5500-6500rpm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch, rear-wheel drive
Suspension: Double wishbone front and rear
Performance: 2.9sec 0-62mph, 205mph, 24.2mpg, 275g/km CO2
Weight: 1328kg
On sale: All 500 sold out
Up against
Better than
Lamborghini Aventador SV: Sorry Lambo, but LT trumps SV
Worse than
McLaren P1: But It’s closer than you might think
We’d buy
McLaren 675LT: Except they’re all sold
Love
Faster, more focused, better looking
Hate
Expensive, all sold
Verdict
Pauper’s P1
*****
